sutton046

I love carving wooden spoons. And I'm not even Welsh. Over the last few years, Spoon Carving would be one of the most popular of the public workshops that I run. It is a wonderfully tactile process and a lot of fun. In the Northern Hemisphere, wooden spoons are predominantly made from green wood. We don't have such a menu of suitable timbers here in Australia. So we do some things differently.  I use mostly hardwoods for wooden spoons. This requires different tools to the green wood spoon makers. Hardwood spoons are incredibly durable as kitchen utensils. As decorative items they are great to carve, take a finish well, and are pretty tough. A sample of spoons ... such fun to design and make! The sample of spoons pictured above are as follows, from the top down: The first spoon I made, 1990. WA Blackbutt. Rather mechanical in nature. Sugar spoon, WA Blackbutt.  Kauri Pine spoon, recycled from old fireplace surround. (See below...!) Cooking spo...

At last, I have finally organised the March 2013 round of public workshops. The delay came about when I was unable to secure my normal venue, Earthwise in Subiaco. However I am happy to have secured an alternative venue - the PVI/CIA Workshop space in West Perth. What a great line-up of workshops! The ever-popular favourites are there, including Carve a Wooden Spoon , Make a Kitchen Chopping Board , Making Cajon Drums (Parents and kids together), and Make Kitchen Spatulas & Salad Servers . In addition to these, there are a couple of new ones: Make a Small Picture Frame and Carve a WELCOME Sign will be fantastic opportunities to push your woodworking hand skills into new territory. Make a Traditional Wooden Stool is one of two workshops being run at times which may suit people while their kids are at school - an experiment in accessibility. For those wanting to discover the wonders of planes, there is The Plane Facts: Learn to choose, use and enjoy hand planes - an exciting...